The Problem with Dreams
by Coocachew
Summary: Ariadne struggles with reality and the dreamrealm. The one person there to guide her? Dom Cobb. A/D. CHAPTER 6 IS UP!
1. Chapter 1

**The Problem with Dreams**

**A/N: ****SPOILER ALERT! Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie!**** This is my first Inception fanfic, but I'm open to all comments, good or bad. I used many quotes from the movie (artistic license), just FYI. The more constructive criticism I get, the more I can improve on my stories. This one is an Ari/Cobb pairing, go ahead and argue all you want! I read some of Voldemort's Spawn' and Ginger Locks' stories and they have converted me to A/C. I might continue with more chapters… I'm writing this with each chapter having a definitive ending, but leaving it open at the same time… Kinda like Inception! :D But it depends on what kind of reviews I get. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan* Someday… ;)**

-xxx-

Four months since the Fischer job. Everyone had continued on with their lives, though that is hard to define… Inception had become everything for the team.

Eames, Yusuf, Saito, and Arthur were busy with their work, wherever they were. None of the team had spoken with each other since the Fischer job.

Dom was back at home, with his children and father and mother. He was savoring the life he had missed for so long, the life he came back to like things had never changed. He had spun the top on the dining table while he embraced his kids for the first time in ages. His only certainty that he wasn't dreaming was the metallic rattling the top made as it stopped spinning and lay unmoving on the table.

Ariadne was back in Paris, finishing her education. On a Saturday, she went to the warehouse where she had learned about inception, shared dreams, and the subconscious. Where one man, Dom Cobb, had taken her into another realm of being, another state of mind that could only exist within the far reaches of the brain… the dream. She remembered sitting in the Parisian café with Dom and seeing her surroundings explode out in all directions. She remembered shifting mirrors to make a never-ending walkway, a bridge from her memory, a lesson she learned the hard way.

_"The more you change things, the quicker the Projections will find you. They're looking for the foreign nature of the dreamer… Wait a second, I know this bridge," Dom had said. _

_ "Yeah, I cross it every day to get to the college."_

_ "Never recreate places from memory," he lectured. "Always imagine new places."_

_ "Well you gotta draw from stuff you know, right?" Ariadne inquired._

_ "Yes, but only details, like a lamp or street sign."_

_ "Why's that?"_

_ "Never recreate memories or you could lose your grasp on what's real and what's not."_

_ "Is that what happened to you?" she instigated. _

_ Dom grabbed her by the arm, staring down at her angrily with his frost blue eyes. "This has nothing to do with you!"_

Then Mal stabbed her in the chest and she woke. Definitely not the most pleasant experience she's had, especially in a dream. She jolted awake, heart pounding, unable to hear or see momentarily. "Hey, look at me. Look at me, you're okay," Arthur said to her, holding her hand in one of his.

Ariadne took the needles and strap off of her wrist quickly, as if they would continue to fill her body and mind with more thoughts and feelings of the dream she had just had. She looked at Arthur's face with a slightly put-off look. "Do you know what this guy has in there?" She yelled towards Dom. "That's some subconscious you have, Cobb! She's a real charmer!"

"I see you met Mrs. Cobb."

"She's his _wife_?"

"Yeah."

"Look… You might not notice or not care about what's going on here, but Cobb's got some serious issues, and I'm not just going to _open my mind_ to someone like that." With that, she storms off.

-xxx-


	2. Chapter 2

**The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 2**

**A/N: Ah, the second chapter. I was so anxious to start writing this after I wrote the first one. But all in due time, eh? Hehe, so anyway, this chapter doesn't follow the movie as much as far as content goes. I'm exploring the relationships with the characters, and also how their ideas and thoughts and dreams affect the plot. So… Enjoy.**

**P.S.: OMG this is terribly OOC. I am HORRIBLE at making characters sound real. I'm only good at that with my own characters (obviously *smacks self*). So sorry.**

**P.S.S: Dear Lord I always put WAY too many commas in my stories. Ignore the comma army… And adverbs. Ignore them too. Thanks. **

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan***

-xxx-

Ariadne walked through her dream, glancing at the buildings, cars, Projections, everything. She came to a river which had a concrete bridge over it. She morphed the bridge into one made of bronze, with rails that were shining with accents of gold inlaid into them. She walked casually over to a bench and sat down, admiring the pearl-like glistening quality the water seemed to have to it. There were birds flying leisurely just above the surface of the water.

Curiosity struck Ariadne, and she took her totem out of her pocket. The brass bishop felt feather-light in her hand. When she tried to tip it over, its head fell very slowly onto the wood of the bench. This only meant one thing: she was dreaming, and now she was sure.

"Nice bridge," she jolted in her seat as she heard the voice behind her. Ariadne turned her head to see the person: Dom. Wait, _Dom_? What was he doing in _her_ dream? He noticed her shock. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he said with a chuckle.

"Dom, what are you doing here? Are you in my dream?" Ariadne asked. Something was strange here, she knew. Dom walked towards her and sat down.

"Uh… yeah. I am in your dream. How is it, by the way?" Dom said casually. Normally one wouldn't enter someone else's dream unless they had to or it was a shared dream. But Dom bent the rules. He always bent them.

"It's fine… Just thinking," Ariadne replied. She was definitely thinking… about everything. It was too much for one dream, for one person.

"About?"

Should she tell him she was really thinking of him, and how glad she was that he was back with his children? How he had gone back with her from Limbo to join the ranks of reality? She couldn't. "Nothing really. Just comparing dreams and reality." She smiled slightly at him. He smiled back.

"I tried that once. A long time ago. Back when Mal and I were sharing dreams. Let's just say it didn't work for me." Dom chuckled. "But maybe you're having an easier time with it than I did..?"

Ariadne stood and walked to the railing of the bridge, looking over the edge with her head down. "Well I think I've got some things figured out…" She looked back at Dom who had joined her at the railing. "In reality, we live our lives going along, knowing that it's all real; knowing everything we see isn't an illusion or a trick of the mind. Knowing it has structure. But in reality, we also know that it can never be more than what it is, that it can never be what we want it to be," Ariadne explained. She wasn't sure whether Dom was following or not, but knowing him, he was.

"Makes sense. What about dreams? You're a smart girl, I think you can figure it out." Dom threw a kind smirk her way. She was looking at him pensively.

"In a dream, anything we imagine becomes a part of the dream. Our minds are free to create whatever they want, because there are no rules in a dream. There are no boundaries as to what can happen or appear, or what we can create. Nothing is outside the realm of possibility." Dom nodded for her to go on. "But the only problem with it…"

"Think you have that part?" Dom asked with obvious concern in his voice. Ariadne turned her eyes in his direction and saw that he was wearing his wedding ring… meaning this _had_ to be a dream. He only had his ring on him when they were in a dream. In reality, he didn't wear it.

"The only problem with dreams is that they're not real." Ariadne felt strange saying it; she didn't know why, she just did. She was starting to sound like Mal.

"Ariadne, to be frank, you're starting to sound like me. When I was in Limbo with Mal," Dom said. He put his back against the bridge, crossing his arms. He narrowed his frosty blue eyes broodingly at her pale face. "After a while, I started thinking that it was just a dream, and I couldn't live like that for much longer. Mal was perfectly fine to stay in Limbo with me forever; I mean I could understand why. It was everything we could make of it. But eventually I convinced her to join me on the train tracks…" Dom looked away from Ariadne towards the river. He could just make out the sun over the water. "And I think you know what happened from there."

The two stood on the bridge watching the sun go down and illuminate the dusky sky in washes of reds and purples. The very top of the sky, if you looked straight up, that was the deepest blue. But nothing was out there. This was, after all, a dream.

"It was wonderful, wasn't it?" Ariadne asked. "Limbo; you could've stayed there forever, but you didn't. I don't see why you didn't stay."

"I couldn't live there knowing every day wasn't real, knowing that every second I was there, I was farther and farther away from reality. From my _real_ children and my _real_ wife." Dom ran his hand through his hair. "So I created the train tracks and the train. The same one that I brought into Fischer's mind. I really don't like to think about it anymore."

Then the dream was over. The timers on the metal briefcase ran out on Ariadne and Dom's sedative. They woke up.

-xxx-

**A/N: Abrupt ending again. Sorry for that, that was the only way I could think of to end the chapter. Wow, I had major issues with writer's block here. I hope it was satisfactory at the least. Now click that review button down there! Each and every one I get makes me immensely happy. :) Hope you liked it, now back to getting writer's block and being ADD again!**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 3**

**A/N: Another challenging chapter. Thanks to everyone for the awesome reviews! I'm happy to keep writing and to give people something fun to read. This chapter is set right after Chapter 2, just FYI. FINALLY got some good inspiration: the stars tonight were oh-so-clear, I just had to incorporate that into this chapter. Writer's block is a b*tch.**

**P.S.: I think that the warehouse was in Paris, but that's just my opinion. So yeah. Also, the little '~o~' thingy is to separate scenes. Again, just FYI.**

**Disclaimer: ****Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan***

-xxx-

She opened her eyes to a blinding fluorescent light. Her ears pounded from head rush. She searched for the man who had come into her dream with her. He was about six feet away, an IV hanging from his wrist. He removed the IV, all the while giving her a defiant stare with his frosty blue eyes. As far as she could tell, they were in the warehouse in Paris. _Oh right,_ she thought. _Dom came into my dream._

"Well that was… an experience," Ariadne stated. She rubbed her eyes once and started to walk towards the exit. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at Dom. "If we could talk about this later… that would be great. It's late, and I have classes tomorrow." She turned towards the exit again.

"Wait- Ariadne," Dom called out to her. She turned around to fully face him, half expecting some lame excuse as to why he was in her dream, and wore the face to match. But that's not what she got. "Come with me," Dom said with a light grin on his face.

~o~

The two dreamers walked along a gravel trail, a small lake on their right, bright manicured grass on their left. Trees dotted the field and edge of the lake, natural pillars of wisdom that was ages old. Even in the City of Romance, no, _especially_ in the City of Romance, and even at 9'o clock at night, hordes of people were out on the lake swimming and playing, and hordes more sitting, playing and running on the grass. But Dom and Ariadne were walking. Discussing more important matters.

"So you know I'm gonna ask… What exactly are we doing here?" Ariadne asked of Dom. She knew exactly where they were; she came to this park when she didn't have any classes. Usually on weekends.

"We-" Dom paused and looked at the crystal clear sky, the stars and moon becoming nightlights of white and blue. "-are walking through a park." He added a mischievous smile that reached his eyes. His blue eyes met her brown ones for an instant before Dom looked ahead, still grinning. Ariadne laughed and butted his shoulder with her own.

"So what were you doing in my dream? Spying on me?" Ariadne asked. He certainly wasn't there just to visit. There had to be another reason. She couldn't think of why he was there… maybe to talk to her, maybe to experience a dream again… she just didn't know.

"I just wanted to see how you were and what you were doing; that's all," Dom replied. That was his genuine answer. He wanted to make sure she was doing alright. Of course it didn't mean anything deeper- he didn't feel that way for her. At least that was what he told himself.

"Alright, I accept your answer." Ariadne had a look of satisfaction on her face. But he knew it was a fallacy. She wasn't as skilled as he was in the art of deceit, but she was smart; she could see through his words.

He laughed nervously and looked toward the lake. He could see all the stars reflecting off its surface, despite it being tormented by countless swimmers. "Dom?" he heard Ariadne ask. "Are you okay?" It took a moment for the words to register in his brain. "Dom." Ariadne repeated herself.

Finally he looked at her; she was searching his frosted-over blue eyes, and dullness covered her brown ones. Her face was fraught with concern. Why was she worrying so much about him? "Yeah, I'm just fine, thanks for asking," he finally replied. He looked around the marvelous city once more. "This must be a nice city to live in."

Ariadne shrugged. It really wasn't. "It's alright I guess; except for the fact that it's way too crowded and that everyone smokes, it's kinda nice." A few minutes passed in silence. The two were slowly walking along the gravel trail. "Tell me again why we're walking through here?" she finally asked.

"Well, it _is_ a beautiful park. It reminds me of the past," Dom replied. And Ariadne knew _exactly_ what he was thinking.

"Dom…" Ariadne touched his shoulder, making him stop walking and look at her. "The past is over. You need to move on." She had a desperate look on her face as she said that to him. Damn it, she was right. Mal was gone. The past was over. Everything he had once known to be reality wasn't here anymore. A new reality had made itself known the second he had woken up on the flight to LAX. He had looked around and automatically known that his past was over, forgotten. He needed to move on. For his sake, for his children's sake… for Ariadne's sake.

That last though his him like a freight train. She needed him more than he needed himself, if that made sense. She was young, and with that knowledge, Dom knew that she was under so much influence from the people she surrounded herself with. One of those people was him; he needed to be a good role model for her, even if that meant some self-sacrifice.

He was willing to do that. "I know," Dom said. "I have moved on. It doesn't mean I don't think about the past, though. I think I always will." He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. He had a pensive look on his face. "It will just take time. That's all I need."

"Well whatever you choose, I just want you to know that if you need anything, you know where to find me," Ariadne said to him.

"Thank you, Ariadne. That means a lot to me."

They resumed walking through the park, which now seemed like a memoir of times past. That park would change everything.

**A/N: Phew, finally done! I wanted to get this submitted before leaving for (internetless) Dad's house. So enjoy this for the weekend. I will be working on Chapter Four over the weekend, so I will get that submitted on Monday. And don't be afraid to review! I LOVE getting them, they keep me writing. So I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you on Monday, kiddies!**


	4. Chapter 4

**The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 4**

**A/N: I feel as though I'm keeping my own little mini-representations of Dom and Ariadne in a shoebox by having them not interact with anyone else. Speaking of shoebox ;) Hehe you'll see. So I'm gonna change that! Woot, another chapter. FYI, the majority of this story is written around 1 AM… That's when my brain gets all muse-y. But anyway, I'm being weird. I'll let you read. So enjoy. **

**P.S.: Holy fudge, SO sorry for the delay on this one. This week has been real busy with Driver's Ed. So yeah. I apologize. **

**Disclaimer: ****Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan***

-xxx-

He had gone home. To be with his children. He felt he couldn't keep away from them for long; he was anxious not seeing their smiles and hearing their angel voices. Seeing them grow to be remarkable young people, ready to fill the world with their ideas. He couldn't keep himself away from them.

-Three hours earlier, at the Charles de Gaulle Airport-

"I'll call you when I land," Dom had said to Ariadne. They shared a brief hug before he strode off to the gate. Ariadne watched him walk away for a moment before calling out his name. Dom turned his body towards her with an expectant look.

"I'm really glad you came to Paris," she shouted to him. He had flashed her a quick smile before waving and continuing down the gate. His flight left about thirty minutes later.

Dom watched as the ground disappeared and the plane soared above the clouds, the blaringly bright sun hitting his face. Almost through the entire flight, all he could think about was getting back to his children. They were truly all he had left in this world; the only thing keeping him in reality, the only thing stopping him from living the rest of his life as a lie. A _dream_. Dom's eyes slowly shut as sleep overtook him.

His eyes opened. He was still on the plane. Dom checked around with his eyes before looking out the window. He saw dozens of other planes flying alongside the one he was in. "Doesn't something seem… strange to you, Dom?" he heard a voice next to him. _Damn it_. Why did she have to be here? _I thought I had moved on from this!_ Dom mentally scolded himself. "Mal, why are you here?" Dom asked it more like a sentence, dripping with scorn and fear.

"We're going home, Dom. Didn't you know that? We're going home to our real children." Mal smiled at him; he almost lost it right there. But he didn't. "No, Mal. I won't come with you. This isn't reality, it's only a dream. I know because you're here," Dom retorted. He looked out the window again at the other airplanes. _It's not real, it's not real_, he repeated in his head. It couldn't be. He was going home to his kids, but not with Mal. That was the key difference.

"Soon I'll wake up and won't see you again, Mal," Dom said the words as if he had said them every day. "Then I'll be home with James and Phillipa." He slowly snuck his hand inside his jacket, to the cold metal of his gun.

"Spin the top, Dom," Mal said. Dom removed his hand from his jacket and pulled out the top from an outside pocket. He placed it on the tray in front of him and spun it. It faltered once and then kept spinning. He grabbed it and replaced it in his pocket. Why was she here, now? He had freed her, so he shouldn't be seeing her in his dreams… right?

"You see? This place _is_ a dream; it's anything you want it to be," Mal teased him and put her hand over Dom's. He couldn't feel it. There was only a sensation of air where her hand was. This wasn't reality. He only chose now to be in reality. He had to get out of the dream.

"I'm sorry Mal, I have to go now." Dom quickly pulled the gun out of his jacket and put it to his temple.

"Go ahead; I will see you later anyway," Mal scared him with her words. He pulled the trigger. He heard a quick, loud bang and then his eyes opened.

-xxx-

He was still on the plane. "This is your captain; we will be landing in Los Angeles in about fifteen minutes. The weather is a pleasant 72 degrees and sunny, so please fasten your seatbelts and we hope you've enjoyed flying with us," he heard the pilot announce. Finally.

After the plane had landed and Dom had gone to the luggage claim, he whipped out his cell phone and dialed Ariadne's number. It rang a few times then went to voicemail.

"Hey Ariadne, it's Cobb. Just wanted to let you know that I landed safely. Um, not much else to say. Call me back. 'Bye." _Stupid; way to sound like an idiot_, Dom thought. _Oh well._ It didn't matter, as long as she returned the call.

He found his suitcase and walked out of the airport, hailing a taxi. He told the driver his address and they were off.

**Cue sudden ending. Really couldn't think of anything for this chapter. And I am SO sorry that this is late. ****I'll make it up to everyone. Review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 5**

**A/N: OOH PLOT TWIST! Couldn't really think of anything for this one. But I did get a random inspiration last night while watching a meteor shower (heck yes). This chapter takes place about four weeks after the last chapter and I made it slightly darker cuz I'm kinda in that mood. This might be jumbled and might not make complete sense, so I'm sorry in advance. Enjoy.**

**P.S.: Sorry this is so late. Driver's Ed takes up 3/5 weekdays, and I had severe writer's block. Also, this is kind of like filler… I actually haven't really thought of a solid story line. -_-'**

**Disclaimer: ****Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan***

-xxx-

That night she didn't dream.

It was a rare occasion that Ariadne dreamed anymore. She had only used the PASIV machine about three times, but already she was losing the only thing capable of keeping her sane until she got a hold of that machine. She would go to bed feeling nothing but the sheets covering her small body, and would wake up feeling numb, only being able to feel once she had had a shower and some breakfast.

Paris no longer held the appeal it once had. It had become a cold, gray city bursting at the gills with people who looked ready to knock any passersby with just a glance. The Seine River had become a black-and-blue, moving gooey mass in her eyes. Everything seemed brittle and delicate, as if the slightest breeze would bring it all down to her level.

There was no color anymore. No light to swallow the darkness. College had become an almost daily chore for Ariadne, and she barely remembered a time when her dreams of becoming an architect were front and center in her mind. That world no longer existed.

His world was her reality now. She craved it, needed it, and pined for it. But it was always out of reach. She wanted something that was over five thousand miles away. And yet it was always one second away from her. One moment in time was all that was necessary for her to spiral into thoughts of his world, the world he had brought her into and didn't show her to the exit. Because there was no exit from that world… Once you were in, you could never escape. She was condemned to a life of imagination, a life of trickery of the mind. Every day she would walk down the streets of Paris, passing thousands of people who she would never know and that would never know her. But she was fine with that. But she also refused to accept their definition of reality. It felt wrong.

She hadn't noticed that as she was off with her thoughts, her feet had taken her to her dorm room to pack a duffel bag and then the Charles de Gaulle Airport. She shook her head once to cleat her mind, all the while walking over to the ticket counter. She told the woman behind the counter that she wanted a ticket for the first flight to Los Angeles. The ticket price made her cringe. Not that it mattered; she still had most of the funds from the Fischer job. The woman told her that the airline planes were incapable of flying all the way to Los Angeles. She would have to buy a ticket to JFK airport in New York. So she did.

Ariadne didn't go back to her dorm room to sleep. She simply waited for six hours for her flight to start boarding. She had been running on only coffee since about eight o'clock the previous evening. _But whatever._

She got on the plane to JFK in what felt like an hour, when in 'reality,' it was about six. When she arrived, she immediately bought a ticket for the next flight to Los Angeles. _Great,_ she thought. _Four hours of waiting._

She didn't understand how people could live like this. On these metal-winged behemoths that lumbered through the sky. Consuming tons of fuel and time. _How primitive._ In his reality, she could've easily brought LA to her with one fleeting thought. But no, this world was limited to sight, not thought.

She was getting impatient, and hungry; she had taken in zero food for over twelve hours. She found a café and ate there, immediately feeling revived and not so corpse-like. She watched the countless travelers pass by her location, not a second glance her way except for the occasional baby or young child. They were innocent beings; might as well leave that be.

Ariadne pulled out her sketchbook and lazily flipped through the pages. They were mostly drawings of impossible buildings, only feasible in the dream realm. Some were spiraling towers; others were skyscrapers that popped out of the sides of cliffs… Inception had opened her mind to the full potential of the brain's power to create beyond what was possible.

Her flight to Los Angeles was leaving in a half an hour. She walked to the terminal and got on the plane that led to the one place that could calm the storm in her mind that always left her with a pulsing headache. She would go to his world, at last, to the center of his universe. _Her_ universe.

-xxx-

**A/N: Seriously. Paris to JFK is eight hours, then JFK to LA is six hours. ****I did that once… Not fun. Most of this chapter came to me around 3:00 AM. Muses are inconvenient. So anyway, I hope this is a fairly good chapter, and I promise to update soon. 'Til next time!**


	6. Chapter 6

**The Problem with Dreams – Chapter 6**

**A/N: Whoa… o.O I really need to update this. Although I'm not sure if anyone still reads this, cuz it's gone nowhere so far… Sorry 'bout that; haven't been in the writing mood. This chapter's gonna jump back and forth so be prepared, and it's short. And I'm kinda trying a different writing style for this one; tell me how it is in a review. But here we go! Let's see if I can get a good muse going. Aaaaanyway… Enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: ****Unfortunately, I do not own Inception. It belongs to the magnificent mind of Christopher Nolan. *Bows to Mr. Nolan***

-xxx-

What shocked him the most isn't that he had dreamed without the PASIV machine. Oh, no, it wasn't that. It was that he saw her.

_Of course he still saw her._

Once he had gotten home and unpacked, he went into the pantry to find his old bottle of vodka (dusty and over two years old) in a secret compartment. He poured a shot glass and swigged it down quickly. He felt the familiar burn of the 50 proof liquid as it fell down his throat. For a second in time it erased the memories of her. At the same time it seared memories of the two-month-old Fischer inception into his mind like a hot, white, clear iron. He could _feel_ them, and _see_ them so clearly, as if he was living them again. But they faded as the alcohol hit his stomach. He didn't have another shot.

Just two minutes was necessary for his vision to start blurring at the edges (when it came to alcohol, Dom was a lightweight). The defined lines of the marble countertop became liquid black, and the moon in the sky was a blob of white. He shambled his way back to his room, hoping he didn't just ruin a well-deserved night's sleep.

He did ruin it. He _knew_ that bottle needed to be thrown out. He would pour it down the drain in the morning.

Dom fell in and out of sleep all through the night, and contemplated taking a walk around the neighborhood. But what if the kids woke up and found him missing? He had just gotten back home not two months ago. He decided against the walk.

~o~

Ariadne had gotten Dom's message on her cell phone. She thought about returning it, but she didn't quite know what to say. It had been midnight Paris time, which was 3 p.m. in Los Angeles. She had stayed up that night sketching when he just-so-happened to call her saying he had landed in LA. When the phone had rang, she had just stared at it, wondering what to do. On one hand, if she answered it, she could escape to his realm for however long the call lasted. But on the other, she wasn't sure if she was prepared to talk to him. But that didn't matter much; she had landed in LA last night. Cobb had gone home about four weeks ago, so Ariadne was fairly certain he was at home for the majority of that time. The only problem she had right then was finding a hotel so she could shut her heavy eyelids.

She found a decent hotel for the night and entered her room. _Pretty plain… but it will do,_ she thought. After all, the next day was the one that really mattered. The young woman put her things down on a chair and walked over to the bed, a wave of comfort and relief hitting her. She was finally in his world again. The world she couldn't get enough of. Her eyelids closed and within seconds, she was asleep.

The next morning, she faintly remembered a dream about standing on a building's roof as the dream collapsed and she fell.

~o~

Dom had finally adjusted to being a father again. Every morning, he thanked whatever gods were watching him for his children. A reminder of the life he had before inception. Before her… He stopped the thought.

He watched from the back door as his kids played in their treehouse that their dad had built for them. _What did I ever do to deserve these children?_ In reality, nothing; not one thing he had done could explain why they were his kids. But they were, and he was thankful for that. He was jolted out of his thoughts by a knock on the door.

"Wonder who that could be," Dom said to himself. He strode over to the door, and when he got there his hand hesitated over the doorknob. A moment later, he twisted his hand to open it. He was surprised by who he saw.

"Ariadne?" Dom questioned. "What brings you to LA?" Without a doubt, he was very confused.

Ariadne hesitated a moment. "Uh, hi, Dom." She hadn't thought of what to say to him until now. "You know, I really don't know what I'm doing here..." Awkward.

A few moments of silence passed between the two. "Why don't you come in?" Dom offered. Ariadne smiled at him and walked inside. "Tell me again, Ariadne; what are you doing in LA?"

-xxx-

**A/N: Sorry for the short and boring chapter. I couldn't think of anything. Oh look, another painful cliffhanger! :D Hope this tides you over until the weekend is over, and don't forget to review! Any ideas I get will really help me figure out what the heck I'm doing with this. 'Til next time.**


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